J720 Transflective LCD mod

I recently bought a J720 on eBay. I've gotta say I already prefer it over my iPAQs. It's ownly downfall was the LCD. I'm not sure if it's just me or if other people have noticed but it seems that the screen tends to darken towards the edges. It was just screaming out for a diffuser/polarizer mod. I ripped apart an old broken 15" Transflective TFT and removed the filters & diffuser, cut them to size and stuffed them into my Jornada. It's now 100% better.

Just thought I'd share that with you...

The only thing that lets it down now is the DSTN screen. I may be wrong but i think the S1D13506 can drive a TFT. I'm going to do some research into that...

Edited by skyfox01_99 2005-07-01 7:57 PM

WOW you're really into these things! very curious if you can achieve something about the tft issue..
what is S1D13506, btw?
and i have never noticed if the screen darkens towards the edges. but the light is really erratic a little. can bother me sometimes for a minute or so. that's it
but i'd be interested in a TFT screen

Neat! ... now if we can solve the glare problem, we would be good to boot!

The Epson S1D13506 is the LCD Controller chip in the Jornada. It's responsible for driving the LCD and the "2D Hardware Acceleration" that HP advertises. Here's a link to it's datasheets.

Top hardware hacking, well done . I don't suppose you fancy writing a few more detailed instructions do you?

Would be very interested in the TFT side of things compared to DSTN. Back in the mists of time, I think someone approached a manufacturer about this, but it turns out that the Jornada is not at all a standard off the shelf size, and to tool up to manufacture a few would cost megabucks. But I'd *love* to be utterly wrong on this one!

Good luck, and welcome to the forums. As first posts go, that's a doosie!

btw, does your 720 look transflective now? As in viewable in sunlight? My (ex)T3 was viewable in direct sunlight. I didn't have know how good the screen was until I tried to see the DSTN screen of a HPC in sunlight. I had to half-guess if its even turned on!

It's a lot better than it was. There's still room for improvement though (mainly due to glare).

With regards to creating a guide, I didn't take any pictures but I'll try and explain as best I can.

--- DO NOT ATTEMPT THIS IF YOU ARE NOT 100% SURE OF WHAT YOU ARE DOING!!! ---

You will need a TX06 screw driver.
1: Remove the main + backup batteries from the Jornada as well as any CF/PCCards you may have installed.

2: remove the 11 screws from the base (6 immediately visable, 4 under the main battery and 1 under the CF cover). The keyboard will fall out at this point.

3: Make sure that the PC Card Eject button it out. Slowly and carefully pop the two halfs of the lower case apart (you may need to slip a knife between the two to seperate them).

4: Remove the motherboard and detatch the LCD ribbon cable.

5: Remove the LCD assembly.

6: Peel back the stickers on the front of the LCD (I used a razor blade for this so that I could reapply them later) and unscrew the screws.

7: Using a knife seperate the two halfs of the LCD assembly.

8: Detatch the LCD ribbon and CCFL power cable from the pcb.

9: Pull the LCD out and put it on a flat surface.

10: Using pliers twist the 6 (i think there were 6) tabs out (BE CAREFULL! DONT BREAK THEM!).

11: After removing the metal backing, the filters should be visible. It's simply just a matter of cutting your new filters to size and installing them (make sure to get the correct order/orientation).

Now just reverse the process to put it all back together.

Good luck!

Edited by skyfox01_99 2005-07-02 9:02 AM

Hitachi's TX16D11VCAA TFT Panel is mechanically compatible with the SX16H003 STN panel so it *should* be just a matter of if the S1D13506 can drive it (still looking into that one...)

wow, how did you find out that they are mechanically compatible? Would love to replace the DSTN on the CLIO with a (transflective) TFT!

By checking the datasheets for both LCDs.

Hitachi have discontinued production of SX16H003s so if you were looking for a replacement for a broken screen you could use an SX16H006 which is drop-in compatible with the SX16H003 (i.e. it's identical but optically it performs better - still DSTN though).

Did you say screen replacement???
I'm going to be 'fixing' all the Clios I have, IE modifying the CF slot, putting in some new batteries (18650x2 with a new circuit, the 2400mAh) and I would LOVE to fix that darned screen!! I may even swap the CCF tube for some LEDs, and go for the polarizing folter for sunlight... But a TFT screen??? Nicenes!!

Kudos on pullapart the LCD housing, I have never been brave enough to try going that far.

Just a big coward aren't I

Terrific on the film replacement, as you seem clued up on this I'll ask this.
Do you happen to know of a supplier for the film; one that will take small end-user orders?
I'm sure there will be a lot of users here interested in trying it for themselves.

@Pete P - When I said "screen replacement" I was referring to replacing the stock Jornada 720 screen with a newer SX16H006 DSTN screen. I'm not sure about the hardware specifics of the Clio range so I can't say if that will work or not (the Hitachi SX16H006 is intended as a replacement for the Hitachi SX16H003).

It *might* be possible to replace the J720's stock DSTN screen with an Hitachi TX16D11VM2CAA TFT screen but, as I said before, I'm still looking into that.

@C:Amie - I ripped apart a broken LCD I had laying around to get the polarizers. You may want to try 3DLens (see the last 2 products) or you could pick up a cheap, broken panel on ebay.

Edited by skyfox01_99 2005-07-02 3:56 PM

I dunno very well about this, but maybe this link could provide you with the info you need. Is states that the epson controller can drive TFT's, but i don't have much knowledge in this area, so i'm not sure. Maybe any of you could confirm using this spec sheets that the Hitachi LCD is compatible with the epson video controller.

Hope this helps then we HPC users will have nothing to ask to the crappy PPC clan

So, how much better does it look exactly, in comparison to a tft screen? I do not need a tft screen, I just need something brighter and crisper.

Why didn't the 720's come with polarizers of this quality?